Prices

Payment Methods

Special Features

Alcohol

Full Bar

Reservations

Accepted/Not Necessary

Delivery Area

3rd St. to 10th St., Fourth Ave. to Fifth Ave.

Profile

This venue is closed.

When Morningside Heights’ Caffe Taci lost its lease in 2004, the owner approached the NYU-area institution Pane e Cioccolato about housing its weekly live-opera events, thus trading one college neighborhood for another, slightly groovier, one. Since January 2005, Pane e Cioccolato, a café-restaurant opened by Ruben Kornfeld in 1978, has played host to Friday and Saturday evenings of raucous singing and piano playing that often last well past the stated 1 a.m. closing time. But any day of the week, you can linger over crisp salads served with creamy, Dijon-based house dressing and heaping portions of homemade fettuccine. There is nothing inventive about Pane e Cioccolato’s cuisine. Southern-inflected with an emphasis on pasta, the menu also draws upon familiar dishes from all over the Boot—and even as nearby as New York’s Little Italy. Chicken mainstays, from parmesan to scarpariello (Italian-American in origin), hardly seem new. Nor are vegetable-based dishes market-driven; the two artichoke pastas use marinated, not fresh, artichokes, even when the vegetable is in season. But frothy cappuccinos, a lively bar, and the restaurant’s faux-frescoed walls lend a comfortably old-school vibe, further enhanced by loft-style ceilings with exposed pipes, a candlelit moodiness, and—if you’re lucky—superb music. — Jenny Feldman